The Oscars are approaching, and we'll be damned if we aren't actually excited. Probably because this year promises to be one of the most dour ceremonies ever, from the oppressively dark nominees to the lack of glitzy parties to the looming storm clouds threatening to rain all over the red carpet. Still, it won't be wall-to-wall downers: We're pretty sure that Jon Stewart's awkwardness, Ellen Page's adorableness, and Amy Adams' Amy Adamsness will keep things from getting too depressing. No, when it comes to exploring the grim realities behind the Dream Factory, once again it's up to us to play the Tim Robbins/Susan Sarandon speech to your perfectly nice evening. And the Friday Buzzkills are...

- Dear Hollywood screenwriters: We know how hard it is coming off of a long hiatus and being expected to get right back to work–hell, there are days when even just mooching off other people's journalistic efforts and making snide remarks sounds like a Sisyphean struggle–but c'mon, where's the scripts? Most people expected the first full post-strike week to end in a flurry of new projects from scribes who'd supposedly spent the previous months keeping all of their best ideas to themselves. Instead, agents have been "shocked at how quiet it's been." Did the writers use up all of their material writing clever picket signs?

- Oh well. Who needs original ideas when you've got surefire hits like making movies based on board games? As reported on earlier this week, Hasbro and Universal have made a pact to release at least four films based on titles such as Monopoly, Ouija, Candy Land, and Battleship, but according to Rotten Tomatoes, it's actually worse than we previously feared, because there's also a new version of Clue in the works. Hey Universal, we already had a Clue. It starred Tim Curry and Madeline Kahn and it was funny. Go fuck something else up.

- From Clue to clueless (how's that for a Pat O'Brien-esque segue?): The world of celebrity memoirs just got a little bit denser with the announcement that Beverly Hills 90210 virgin, Lifetime movie victim, and one of the few celebrities to turn homewrecking into a career move, Tori Spelling, has recently completed her own remembrance of things passed on by her rich daddy that's due for publication soon. Some selected passages have already been leaked to People magazine, so if you're one of the four people who plan on buying Tori's book and don't want it spoiled for you, skip the following sample quote on her 90210 co-star: "As for Luke Perry, he called me 'Camel' because I had long eyelashes." Uh huh. Also, if you want to see your sideburns plastered all over Teen Beat, you don't call the boss' daughter "Horseface."

- Spelling's memoir also includes the following note on Shannen Doherty: "A night with Shannen meant going to the hottest club and drinking until the early hours." Crazy how that sounds positively quaint compared to today's hard-partying starlets, isn't it? Where's the stuff about blowing rails off the bathroom floor, luring greasy shipping heirs back to your car by flashing your velvet goldmine, then running over a few homeless people on your way to the In-N-Out? That's the new measure of celebrity, Tori dear, and unless you've got some revelations on secret lesbian makeout sessions with Jennie Garth up your sleeve, you're probably headed straight for the Wal-Mart cutout bin. Still, while it may not push product, Spelling, Garth, and Doherty et al. can probably take comfort in the fact that their relatively tame days of tearing it up have left them decently preserved, unlike Britney Spears who–according to the FBI-approved experts at ageprogression.org–will look like this when she hits 36:

- One girl who's determined not to end up a haggard hot mess is Lindsay Lohan, who recently capped off her third stint in rehab with a triumphant (?) nude spread in New York Magazine, where she avowed that she "sure as hell" wouldn't end up a casualty of overdose like Heath Ledger. Sort of a funny statement to make, considering her loving, not-at-all-exploitative father Michael Lohan recently revealed to In Touch magazine every single prescription she's been taking, a litany of meds that resembles a word-for-word recounting of Ledger's toxicology report. Among Lohan's little helpers: "Adderall for her Attention Deficit Disorder, Xanax for depression and anxiety, Ambien for insomnia," as well as the potentially lethal (and admittedly awesome) painkiller Oxycontin. But, you know, she's, like, smart about that stuff now.

- And just in case you think celebrities abusing prescription drugs is a relatively new thing, consider what could be the week's most depressing quote from Delta Burke, who entered a psychiatric hospital in January, about a low point during her Designing Women days: "I was parked in the car in the hills with a gun and a bottle of Xanax beside me I just wanted the pain to go away." Hey, we know how you feel. Those Dixie Carter monologues were sheer fucking torture.

- All these whiny female celebrities who think they had it rough should try living in a world where they're truly oppressed–like Yegor Letov, regarded as the father of Russian punk music, who died Tuesday at the age of 43. Letov fronted the group Grazhdanskaya Oborona (translated as "Civil Defense"), who were forbidden to play in public during the 1980s Soviet Union but garnered notoriety via fan-distributed cassettes featuring songs like "Some Guy Got Killed By A Bus" and another that "referred to Vladimir Lenin rotting in his mausoleum." Do svidaniya, Yegor.